Minnesota state Sen. Gary Dahms, R-Redwood Falls, took questions from Marshall area residents during a town hall meeting at the MERIT Center in Marshall on Wednesday morning.

MARSHALL — Health care funding – both at the state and federal level – was a topic that came to the forefront at part of a town hall session Wednesday morning in Marshall.

Minnesota state Sen. Gary Dahms said proposed cuts to state health care coverage for undocumented immigrants was one of the big issues holding up passage of a Minnesota budget deal. Later at the town hall, other audience members asked how Minnesota could weather possible cuts to Medicaid.

Dahms, R-Redwood Falls, was speaking solo at a town hall session at the MERIT Center. Dahms and Rep. Chris Swedzinski, R-Ghent, had both planned to be at the town hall. But with state lawmakers going into a special session, Swedzinski was unable to attend, Dahms said.

“Chris is on the energy bill, and that was one of the fairly controversial bills, and they’ve been working on that,” Dahms said. “I know they met with the governor yesterday afternoon.”

Dahms said the main focus of the special session is getting a state budget passed.

“We got our (spending) targets last Thursday morning, and they were agreed-on targets,” Dahms said. “And there was, it’s called the POCI (People of Color and Indigenous) caucus, there’s five in the Senate and five in the House, and they decided they didn’t like the agreement, so they started a protest.”

One of the issues POCI caucus members had with the budget deal was that it discontinued MinnesotaCare coverage for adult undocumented immigrants, Dahms said. On May 15, members of the POCI caucus held a news conference where they said they would not vote for the Health and Human Services budget if it cut off coverage for undocumented immigrants.

Dahms said the original bill that provided the health insurance coverage was “kind of buried” in a 2023 bill. “Most of the researchers didn’t even realize this was in the bill until it kicked in place this January.”

“The original bill allowed $200 million for four years, and they figured there could be as high as 5,000 folks that would get this insurance,” Dahms said. By the end of March, there were more than 17,000 people enrolled, and the cost was in excess of $600 million, he said.

The budget deal worked out last week allowed undocumented immigrants under the age of 18 to keep coverage, but not adults.

“That’s when the POCI caucus started flaring up and got pretty upset, and they went after the governor,” Dahms said. “That’s the biggest (issue) that’s causing the log jam,” he said.

Dahms said another controversial part of the Health and Human Services budget is that it shifted more of the cost burden for nursing homes and assisted living down to Minnesota counties, and also cut funding by $260 million.

Audience members at the town hall had a few different questions related to health coverage. One person asked if the Minnesota Legislature was doing anything to try and cushion the blow of possible cuts to Medicaid by Congress.

“I do not know what Congress is going to end up doing,” Dahms said. However, he said if Medicaid cuts are passed, “It’s probably not going to have any effect on us.”

“We hear a lot of cuts coming from the federal government, but if you track those down, a lot of those cuts, the folks that are getting cut shouldn’t have been getting the money to start with,” Dahms said. “I’m not too concerned about the impact of that. I’m much more concerned about the impact we’re going to have by cutting the $260 million out of nursing homes by the state, versus what the federal government might do.”

“But doesn’t the money from the federal government, that they’re going to make these massive cuts to Medicaid, Social Security, all the safety nets for children, the elderly – doesn’t that funnel down to the state somehow?” asked another audience member.

“I’m focusing on the state level,” Dahms said. “And you have some trickle-down, but not nearly as much as what you think you would have with Medicaid. And you do not know, and I do not know, how they’re determining who is eligible and who is not. What I’ve seen so far, the cuts have been applied to people that are getting money, that shouldn’t be.”

Audience members also asked if state legislators had come to an agreement on cuts to Local Government Aid and County Program Aid.

Dahms said “we were very surprised” by proposed cuts to LGA and CPA.

“This last Thursday, when the tax bill was introduced in tax committee, the chair notified members that there’s going to be a $20 million cut to County Program Aid, a $20 million cut to Local Government Aid, and that was the first that anybody knew about it other than the tax chair,” he said. Later, the cuts were reduced to a total of $20 million instead of $40 million, he said. “But that is not in the House language.”

Dahms said he didn’t think the proposed cuts would survive. “But it’s possible we could, depending on what other things are there that they have to negotiate with, and what you have to give and get.”

One audience member asked if there would be any bonding in this special session.

Dahms said the budget agreement had included $700 million in bonding. “The $700 million that we do now would be for projects like HEAPR at colleges, for state buildings, and for some road and bridge money,” he said.